Here in PLP, we are still studying World War One. For our next project, we had to write a diary entry from the point of view of a soldier that actually fought. Using this website, we found real soldiers that fought in World War One. Then we had to analyze any primary sources that were attached to our soldier of choice. Using those primary sources, and any other research we had done, we had to write a diary entry from any time during the soldier’s life.
I ended up choosing a soldier named Talbot Mercer Papineau. He seemed like a normal soldier but after I did more research, it turned out that he was related to Louis Joseph Papineau, a very famous figure from Canadian history. I also found out that he was the cousin of Henri Bourassa, someone we had studied very recently.
All of the information included in the diary is true, based on primary sources and other bits of information that I found. Since Papineau had written a newspaper entry on the war, I included an excerpt of it in my diary entry.
These are some of the primary sources that I used:
Talbot Mercer PapineauA picture of Papineau that was published in a newspaperA letter that Papineau sent to his motherA form filled in by Papineau
I tried to interprete those sources and determine out Papineau’s personality. I then tried to incorporate his personality into my diary entry.
Well, here is my diary entry:
Click to Enlarge
This assignment helped me understand how to anazlyze primary sources and transfer the information into a different assignment.
*An interesting fact, Papineau was portrayed in the CBC film, The Great War, by none other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
*Note: The excerpt from the newspaper by Papineau is real and was found on this website.
I was pretty excited when I found out that we were going on a trip just a couple of weeks into my first year as a PLP student. I had heard a lot about the legendary PLP trips, but nothing could prepare me for those 4 days in Oregon and Washington. The days were truly full of fun, and a lot of hard work. When I look back at the trip, I know that I will always remember it. It was a unique learning experience that I was to lucky to be a part of.
This was not just a trip where we could sit back and relax. In groups of 5, we were tasked with creating a “5 minute movie”. These movies had to explore a topic surrounding our unit, Hanford and the Manhattan Project. Within our groups, we each had to focus on a specific part of our larger topic, in other words, a sub topic. Our group, composed of Chris, Nash, Tom, Maria, and myself, decided to study the science behind Hanford’s B Reactor, and my subtopic was focused on the cleanup of the B Reactor. The trip to Oregon and Washington would teach us more about our topics and provide us with great footage to use in our movies. On the trip, we had the opportunity to interview ex-Hanford workers and scientists. We would also get to tour the actual B Reactor. In short, this trip would provide us with everything we needed to create a professional quality movie.
This is a copy of the script I used for my part of the movie:
A map of our tour of the Hanford site
Leaving early in the morning, our drive down was anything but easy. At the border, our bus got stopped for a random check, causing a long wait. After that, our drive went according to plan. We had a brief stop for lunch, and by late afternoon, we were through Washington and into Oregon. That night we had a relaxing dinner and saw a movie. The hard work would begin the next day.
The next two days were a blur of activity. We saw a running nuclear reactor, drove through the Columbia River Gorge, stopped at museums and eventually ended up in Hanford, Washington. In Hanford, we received a tour of the whole site, as well as a tour of the B Reactor. Stationed inside the reactor were experts who could answer our questions. These experts all have small appearances in our films, providing some information to the viewers. Although it only lasted a few days, the trip was full of fun and hard work.
At Reed College, where we saw a fully functioning nuclear reactor
Once we were back in Vancouver, we had to take stock of the footage we had collected and begin to piece together our movies. We then recorded ourselves narrating parts of our films and finally stitched all 5 parts together. We then handed our movie in as a first draft. The teachers then critiqued our movies and we made the appropriate changes. After handing in two more drafts, our movie was finally finished.
A potential title for our movie which we inserted into our first draft
If I had to do this project again, there are many things I would do differently. I would have written my script for my part of the movie before we left, instead of from my hotel room in Hanford. I would have gone into the trip with my topic not so narrow and would have had a more open mind about changes to my topic. I would have also taken more videos which would have given me more possible footage for my movie.
For more specific information on what we did daily on the trip, this is the trip itinerary:
Here it is. The movie that we spent so much time making:
This seems like a pretty straightforward question that should have a relatively simple answer. However, historians actually have very different theories on how the war started, some more plausible than others. Working with two of my classmates (Tom and Jackson), we explored possible theories and eventually arrived at a consensus opinion. World War 1 was started by unrestrained nationalism in Serbia, Germany, Russia, and England, which led to an unrelenting search for power.
Now that we had a thesis, we had to find a way to present our information. Instead of going with the typical explain everything or keynote, we decided to challenge ourselves and attempt to create an educational puppet show. This proved to be a lot more time consuming than we’d anticipated. We created our own puppets, filmed the show,
Our puppets representing Britain and France
recorded all the lines, and edited the whole show. When the dust had settled, our show was almost 20 minutes long.
So here it is. Our puppet show on the start of World War 1:
Recently we have been learning about the time period before World War One in Canada, called the Laurier Era. I noticed a clear pattern during this period; the French Canadians were always being oppressed. However, out of this opression seemed to stem a strong feeling of nationalism. After noticing this I started wondering if French Canadians still face opression today? I also wondered if French-Canadians still feel very nationalistic. I decided to dig a little deeper and find out.
This was my first Blogpost, so I decided to make an Explain Everything. I selected pictures that were relevant to my topic and put them into Explain Everything, creating “animated visuals” for my project. I also wrote a script explaining my topic. Then I put everything into iMovie and matched the animations with the audio.
He seemed like a normal soldier but after I did more research, it turned out that he was related to Louis Joseph Papineau, a very famous figure from Canadian history. I also found out that he was the cousin of Henri Bourassa, someone we had studied very recently.
